


Miles

by tricerahops



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 08:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3128153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricerahops/pseuds/tricerahops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mindy's off to Stanford, and it doesn't take long for her and Danny to realize the weight that three thousand miles will put on their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stanford.

The word was charged with the kind of prickly tension that grew sharper with every mention. It hung heavy, carrying the weight of their future, a million unanswered questions and a big blank space. It followed both of them around in the weeks leading up to her departure, a black cloud and an omen and an iron chain all at once. Just the mention of Stanford, by anyone, closed Danny’s throat up and sank his heart into his stomach, twisting his organs into knots.

It was bad enough that California was the one place his dad didn’t run from. Now this place threatened to keep Mindy, too?

It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy for her. He was so happy for her, he truly was, and he knew she’d ace the fellowship. He had never been more proud of someone, especially someone as deserving of the opportunity as Mindy.

It wasn’t that he was all that worried that she’d cheat on him, either. He trusted her, and though he planned to be fully suspicious of the men she met in California, Mindy was loyal.

It was just that he was angry. Not at Mindy – he couldn’t be, this wasn’t her fault – but at the situation, Stanford, everything. It was easy to hate Stanford, because for once, there was no one to blame for her leaving, and so he directed his anger at California. Maybe it would rub off on her, and she’d realize Stanford wasn’t that great after all. Maybe he could convince her to stay.

Of course, she didn’t want to stay, and really, he didn’t want her to either. She was happy and excited to go, and so he didn’t try to convince her not to. He wanted her to promise to come home, though, to swear on Katy Perry and their unborn nine daughters that she’d move back to New York and back to the practice once the eight months were up. To promise she wouldn’t fall in love with California or someone else or the person she was when she was there. But how could he ask her to make promises when he was still too scared to promise anything to her?

It was too much pressure on a new relationship, and she hadn’t even left yet. They both knew their relationship felt like forever, but they hadn’t even been dating a year. What if she found a practice she wanted to work at and wanted him to leave New York and move there for her? What if she asked him to choose between everything he’d ever known and the only thing he’d ever been sure of?

As much as he wanted to say all of this, all he could manage to write on the note he tucked into her makeup bag was, “Good luck, baby, I’m so proud of you. You’re gonna be amazing.”

\---

The distance was harder on Danny. Mindy missed him, of course – she missed his cuddles and kisses and reassurance – but her life was too full of new experiences and she was too busy to dwell on it endlessly. For Danny, there was just emptiness. Her office, his apartment, her apartment, the subway, the break room at work, the doctor’s lounge…it felt like these pieces of her were standing still and collecting dust, waiting for her to come home and reanimate them.

He knew how to miss someone so acutely that his ribs started to hurt, and how to live with the ghosts of those who left him. What he didn’t know was how to be in limbo, to feel so close to someone – and something – he couldn’t touch.

Danny couldn’t say he preferred it, but he was good at being alone. The rhythms and the routines of loneliness came easily to him, no matter how much he’d tried to break them. The tiniest part of him was a little relieved to find himself settling back into himself and all the freedoms he had when he was by himself, but a much larger part of him found the lack of interruptions disturbing. Without her presence to drown them out, all of his fears and insecurities would fester too close to the surface and he’d forget to breathe.

Mindy had been in California a month, and she’d been gushing about how excited she was to show Danny around for about as long. She picked him up at the airport – in the car she’d bought to accommodate her new California lifestyle, a bright yellow VW bug – and he immediately cursed it all: the traffic, the sports teams, the food, the culture, the Silicon Valley snobbery, the newfangled technology, the craft everything, the stupid non-accents and the foreign slang… She dressed differently here, and between that and the driving and the new friends she’d made, he could hardly stand it. He loved that she was thriving, but, just…why did it have to be Stanford? There were hospitals and universities in New York, or even Boston, which he’d have settled for. Why was this country so fucking big, and why did she have to improve herself on the other side of it?

On the drive to her apartment, she rambled about some frat party she’d crashed with Rishi the weekend prior. “Danny, it was so much fun! We got hella hyphy, and Rishi is teaching me so much about the hip Bay Area rappers!”

Danny didn’t know what any of that meant, but it didn’t matter; it was the unfamiliarity of it all that stung.

\---

If Danny was holding his breath throughout their relationship before, now he was suffocating. Their relationship, at least on his end, was fraught with worry and tension and not enough breathing room once she left.

He had doubts that they could make it through this, that they could just go back to who they were and what they had once she came home (if she came home), but he knew he couldn’t express any of them to Mindy, especially now that she was so happy and so seemingly established in California.

Both times they’d gotten together, he’d run through every scenario in which he could possibly fuck this up. He knew all the ways his faults could ruin his chances at happiness, and he’d just about exhausted them all. This time, though, it was Mindy who had the chance to ruin them.

As Danny filled her in during one of their scheduled phone dates on the babies born and pregnancies announced since her departure, the thickening distance between them felt more than just physical. Some days, they got to talk for hours, laughing and bantering like usual. Other days, they either wouldn’t talk at all or would have inconsequential conversations.

“I miss you,” he sighed into the phone. “It’s weird here without you.”

“Aw, baby, I miss you too!” she chirped. “But don’t worry, I’m coming to visit in two weeks, and then it’ll be spring break, and then a few months after that I’ll be home for good. I think I’m going to spend spring break in Cancun like I always wanted to do in college, because I heard Pharrell is DJing a beach party there.”

Danny sank further into the couch, resting his elbows on his knees and choking on the realization that she didn’t get it, she didn’t know the toll her absence took on him. He thought maybe if he made himself smaller, quieter, she would hear him, or at least worry about him. She knew him better than anyone did, and she was supposed to know how to read him. She couldn’t see him, though, and so she couldn’t see the pain on his face or hear the faintness of his breath catching in his throat. For once he couldn’t show her how he felt, and all of his frustrations came spilling out against his better judgment.

“You’re not even coming home for spring break? So I only get weekend visits from you, but Cancun gets a whole week? Jesus, Mindy, it’s like I’m not even part of your life anymore.”

“Are you kidding me? Of course you’re part of my life. I come and visit, don’t I? I show you around when you’re here, and we talk nearly every day. It’s just that this is what I’m doing right now, and I’m doing the best I can.”

“You wanted something real, Mindy. Well, you got it, and it’s hard. I love you so much, and I’m unbelievably happy for you, but I won’t pretend I’m happy that you’re three thousand miles away from me, or that I’m holding down the fort in New York, taking on all of your patients because Jeremy took all of Peter’s and we still haven’t hired anyone else, or that I’m playing landlord to your empty apartment so you don’t get robbed again while you’re flitting off in California and Cancun.”

“Yeah, your gold medal is on its way, alright? Did it ever occur to you that I’m not ‘flitting off’? This fellowship is grueling, and I’m pulling all-nighters studying, and this campus doesn’t even have a 24-hour Starbucks! Plus, you haven’t even sent me one care package here like you did when I was in Haiti.”

“Did you ever even consider how this would affect me, how it would affect us? Did you consider running it by me? You have all these new friends, and new clothes, and new everything…”

“This isn’t even about me, Danny, this is about you being stubborn and selfish and averse to change. Did _you_ even consider that I’m doing this _for the practice_? Why can’t I want both our relationship and my career to be successful?”

He sighed, exasperated. “Just, promise me you’ll come home after everything.”

Maybe he was being a little bit selfish, but so what? So was she. He’d already let her go once; shouldn’t he be allowed to keep her this time?

She paused. “I’m planning to, Danny, you know that, but I can’t promise you anything. What if an offer opens up that I can’t refuse? I have to do what’s best for my career, and I want to see where it takes me.”

“ _What?!_ So you went from ‘I’ll be home for good’ to ‘I can’t promise you anything’? What if _I_ make you an offer you can’t refuse? What about what’s best for us? Isn’t that what you wanted in the first place?”

He had always felt like her second choice, and she’d just confirmed it. From the parade of guys she chased to now this fellowship thing, she’d always taken him for granted. It felt a little bit like loneliness, and a lot like losing.

“Don’t fucking tell me what I want!” she spat.

“Do I at least get to ask what you want? Because it’s not like you’ve ever told me outright. You just expect me to guess, and then you spring these things on me out of the blue!”

“Why are we even fighting about hypothetical situations, Danny? Part of the reason I decided to take the fellowship is because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I was secure in our relationship. I know you’ll always be there – you always have been so supportive of me. I dunno, I guess I just thought you’d understand.”

“I do understand, but I guess I just thought we’d make these sorts of decisions together,” he said quietly.

It would be so much better if they didn’t have to have these arguments on the phone. If he could just hold her, pull her against him and look at her, she’d know she belonged here with him. She’d find the words he couldn’t say in his embrace and she’d know he was worth coming back to.

\---

She’d now been gone longer than some of the patients at the practice had been pregnant, and Danny didn’t like lingering around the hospital anymore. People wondered about how Mindy was doing, but no one asked how he was holding up. They just assumed he was fine – which, historically, was true, but not this time. “How’s Mindy liking California?” everyone would ask. “I bet you’re so proud of her. It must be hard for her to be away. When’s she getting home again? You gonna lock that down when she gets back? Oh, are you going to move there with her?”

The complexities of their situation were too much to explain in the hospital corridors, especially with such intrusive questions, so he’d just manage a weak smile and reply that she was doing well and he was going to visit her soon, and that she’d be back soon enough. 

If he said it often enough, maybe it would start to be true.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A companion chapter, mostly from Mindy's perspective.

Mindy had her own hangups about going to Stanford, but not very many of them concerned Danny – not at first, anyway. She was afraid that the workload would be too heavy, that she wouldn’t be at the top of her class, or that she wouldn’t meet Jean’s expectations – the usual overachieving star student, high-powered career woman stuff.

As the calendar ticked further toward her departure, though, she began to worry about Danny. He’d been a little distant since she accepted the fellowship, and he’d started to pick little fights to make it easier on himself when she left. He’d hoped she hadn’t noticed, but she knew his patterns too well. She would be okay, and she knew they had a good relationship (she wasn’t quite sure if she could call it “great” just yet, because they both had a lot to work on), but she didn’t know if he could make it through the eight months without several existential crises.

She worried about what the loneliness would do to him. Would it let him think she was abandoning him? Would it drive him to seek something else – someone else – to fill the empty space? Would it convince him she didn’t miss him?

“I’m nervous,” she confided one night as they snuggled in her bed. “I’m going to miss New York, and the practice, and especially you…I don’t know if I can handle being away for so long, I’m going to miss you so much. What if it’s not everything I want it to be, and then I’ll have just wasted my time being away from you, and for nothing? It’s such a long time, and what if I go and end up a failure, and…”

Danny had been partly hoping she’d express reservations about leaving, maybe even admissions that she’d rather stay, but actually hearing her say it tore at him. He loved her, and he wanted her to succeed. He pulled her closer and shifted to look at her.

“You are a great doctor and a wonderful girlfriend, Mindy,” he said firmly. “You deserve this. You’re going, I’m going with you to help you unpack, and I’m putting you on that plane even if I have to carry you on board myself.”

Tears leaked quietly from her eyes, now a mixture of sadness and gratitude. “Of course,” she nodded. “You’re right, you’re always right. Thank you, Danny, I love you so much. I’m so lucky to have you in my life, and you know that won’t change when I’m in California.”

\---

Before she left, Mindy had helped Danny set up Skype on his computer, and they’d agreed to have Skype dates on Saturday evenings. By the third Saturday she was in California, Mindy was homesick (seeing a flash sale at Barney’s posted on Facebook didn’t help, nor did the lack of decent pizza in this city), but seeing Danny’s beautiful face and hearing his voice usually helped quell her pangs.

“Tell me about work.”

“Work’s fine. Busy.”

“Wow, you’re so descriptive.”

“There’s not much to tell, it’s pretty much just the same.”

“Okay, but tell me about how it’s the same! How are my patients? Have you scared them off with your bedside manner yet? You haven’t turned away any celebrities, have you?”

“My bedside manner is _fine_ , and no celebrities. I don’t know, Min!”

“So how’s the staff?”

“They’re good.”

“….I _mean_ , what have they been up to? What are their latest antics? Who’s dating whom? What breed is Morgan’s latest office puppy?”

She was really grasping at straws to pretend she cared about Morgan’s dogs.

“Morgan doesn’t have an office puppy, at least he’d better not, and Jeremy and Lauren broke up, or had a fight, or something. Who knows with Tamra and Morgan. Beverly brought in a whole bunch of glass jars last week, but I don’t really want to know what that’s about. That’s all I know, because I’m really good at not getting involved in other people’s lives.”

“You should get involved in other people’s lives! Especially now that I’m not there to be your best friend. Now that you and Jeremy are the only two partners left, why don’t you hang out with him more? You could be like, bros.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Tell me what you’ve been eating, I miss New York food.”

“I went to the Thai place for lunch yesterday, and I had a bagel for breakfast this morning. How’s the food in California? Don’t eat the avocados, I tried one when we went to LA and it was terrible.”

“Bagels!” she whined. “You’re cruel, don’t remind me how much I miss bagels! They have some pretty good junk food here – there’s a burrito where the French fries are _inside the burrito_ , and the carne asada fries are bomb – but sometimes the food is weird. They put fish in tacos, and almost nothing here is fried, and if it is, it’s literally just fried avocado or zucchini! There are so many vegetables here, and I miss fried stuff with cheese. Would you be able to overnight me some mozzarella sticks?”

“No, I’m not doing that, you could stand to eat more fresh food! Fish? In tacos? No, no, no, that’s a bastardization of food.”

She giggled. “So what else is new?”

“Not much…I’m getting tired, though. I should probably get to bed. It’s late here and I’ve got to do my nighttime rituals. Night, Min, I love you.”

“Oh…okay, good night, babe. I love you too.”

\---

Mindy stood at Danny’s kitchen counter, holding a glass of wine and soaking in the last night of her weekend visit before she went back to Stanford.

“You know, it was actually really nice visiting the practice today. Tamra even complimented me on the tan I got in Cancun over spring break.”

“Yeah, everything’s pretty much the same around there, except you’re gone. Morgan and Tamra are still fighting over the big desk, though, and they keep asking me why one of them can’t just use your desk. I said no, of course, because you got so mad when Dr. Leotard jacked your office when you were in Haiti.”

“You could let them. Just tell them not to touch any of my stuff, and don’t let them open the middle drawer, and don’t take my name off the door.”

“What about when you come back?”

“Well…” she shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen. If I want my office back in three months, I’ll just kick them out.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know what’s going to happen? Mindy. You’re going to finish the fellowship and come back to the office. Right?”

“I…I think so, but…”

“ _What?!_ Why is this the first I’m hearing of you leaving the practice – what about what you said before, about taking the fellowship for the practice? Why wouldn’t you come back to New York? What about me, what about us? Why haven’t we talked about this?” The realization hit him like a wave trying to drown him. His heartbeat quickened, and she could see the panic on his face. It only made her more defensive. She wouldn’t let him tell her how her life was going to turn out. Her career was hers, and if she decided to spend it in California, he’d just have to come with her.

“We _have_ talked about this; it’s not my fault that you never listen to what I have to say! Don’t ask me to choose, Danny. Don’t tell me I have to decide between you and my career.”

“Why, because you don’t know what you would choose? Or because you do know, and you know you wouldn’t pick me?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?”

“I…you’re making this too hard, Danny!” She could hear the hurt in his voice now, saddened and a bit higher-pitched than usual. Tears swam along her bottom eyelid, impatiently waiting to fall.

“Oh, I’m making this too hard?” His voice rose. “You’re the one who moved away! I did everything right this time, and you still left me.”

“Don’t do this. Don’t make this about us,” she said, shaking her head and looking down.

“Of course it’s about us! Mindy, we’re together. All of the decisions we make are about us.”

“Oh yeah? Is that what you thought when you broke up with me? Was that about us, or was it just about you?”

“Is that what this is about? I hurt you one time, and I’m still being punished for it? I’m _sorry_ , Mindy. How many times do I have to apologize to you? I can’t live my life with my mistakes held over my head. I do that enough to myself, I don’t need it from you too, okay? I know. I’m a fuckup and I don’t deserve you.”

“For the last _fucking time_ , this isn’t about you!” She was yelling now. “I accepted a teaching fellowship to strengthen my career, to provide more opportunity for both of our lives together. I have no intention of letting you go. Wherever I go, I’m taking you with me.”

He hadn’t agreed to move around the country for her. “What do you mean, you’re taking me with you? What’s wrong with our practice in New York?”

“Nothing! But it’s the only place I’ve ever worked, and maybe I’d like to work in a place that has more women, or different clientele. I don’t know, sometimes I just wonder what else is out there, if there’s something more I’m missing. Nothing is definite, but I want to get the most I can out of my career, and I’m still figuring out how to do that.”

He didn’t know if she was still talking about the practice or about him. “Then I guess I don’t know how to tell when I’ll be enough for you.”

“Danny…”

Mindy felt so far away from him. She had tricked herself into believing thousands of miles wouldn’t put any psychological distance between them, but she was beginning to see the difficulty in communicating long-distance with a man who was already emotionally miles away.

Danny shoved his hands in his pockets, raising his shoulders and his gaze to look at her, hesitant and wounded. “I should go.”

“So you’re just going to leave, and leave this unfinished?” She was quieter now, and a little defeated.

“We’re fighting in circles, Min, we need a break. You don’t get to be the only one to leave.”

“Then I guess you’re two for two.”

She watched him shut the door without looking at her. How did they even get here? She hated that all they did when she came home was fight. She needed him to know that wherever her job took her, he was her future, and that just because she’d left, she hadn’t left him behind. 

\---

He didn’t show up to take her to the airport the next day, and she was too exhausted to chase him down at 5 AM. Maybe it would be better to just leave the space between them and let this fight rest before she tried to talk to him again. She was impatient to fix things and to have them be happy again, but she waited a day before she called.

The phone rang for what seemed like ages before he picked up, sounding exasperated and reluctant.

“Mindy, I’m at work. Can this wait until I get home?”

“No, but I’ll try to be quick. Look, the other day…of course you’re enough. I’m sorry if I ever made you think you weren’t, because you are. It’s just, I’m not worried about losing you, so I wanted to do some career exploration. That’s all. I know we aren’t perfect, but I also know I love you and that we’re going to be together for a long time, if I have anything to say about it. You’ve given me the strength to go after what I want – and I want to be with you and to be a badass, hot doctor.”

She was itching to take his hands and kiss him, to let him know she wouldn’t let him go, not even when he was on the opposite coast.  

“I only have three more months, babe. Long distance is hard, and the fellowship is hard, but I think we can do it. I don’t know where we’re going to end up, but I hate that we’re getting ahead of ourselves worrying about the future when I don’t have to worry about my future with you. Let’s just be patient, and take this thing one day at a time. Okay?”

To Danny, this didn’t make things any more certain, but he would take what he could get from her. “Yeah…okay,” he said slowly. He knew he’d be holding his breath for a long time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music: The Lashes - Sometimes the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Music: Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan/Transatlanticism
> 
> Thanks to alittlenutjob for beta-ing and her always wonderful advice!


End file.
